Thursday, August 16, 2012

Blessed in Portugal

Another fortunate event that happened when we were in Spain was the chance to have gone to one of the most famous apparition sites in the world--Fatima in Portugal. Yes, after a 4-hour bus ride from Caceres and a 1-hour difference in time zones, we were in Portugal. I never thought that I will go to such a beautiful place. The funny things is that in Spain, it was hot. Hot as in you would want to wear shorts instead of pants and leggings so our clothes were good only for that kind of weather. But when we reached Portugal, we were surprised that it was cold, really cold. Good thing I was wearing a cardigan! HAHA.

I have said earlier that this is one of hte most famous apparition sites in the world. Yes, because in our religion, The Lady of Fatima appeared to three children many, many moons ago at this very site. They were told to build a church in honor of her and so that was done. Everything was magical and somehow, you can feel the purity and the sereneness of the place. Here are our pictures of the journey that we had there. More pictures on the next post! :)

Bread is the staple food in Spain. So our "mama" prepared this lomo and cheese sandwich as our snack. One thing I can never forget about her is that she cooks really good. HAHA.

See that? See that? This was how cold it was.

If you have been to Quiapo church in Manila, you would see people praying while kneeling towards the altar. In Portugal, they have something just like that. Only, you have to endure almost a kilometer of the steel pathway to get to the altar. Here, we witnessed the sacrifices of those people who chose to do this instead of just walking like many others. Some even wore cushions on the knees for protection .

There was also another church inside the premises of the site. This one in particular looks like an Asian Jesus Christ. The background is so beautiful because it's colored in gold tiles and the scenes depicted were just amazing.